N330AA (cn 22330/166) 12:30:22. The day is hazy and hot. I was taking photos to the Air New Zealand's 747-400 ZK-SUJ, when in the background I saw a big explosion in the engine number 1. It was the American's 767 N330AA. At the time of the explosion, the aircraft engines were running while the plane was parked near to the AA hangar. [Canon 20D + Sigma 50-500]

A visitor from - posted Wed January 2, 2013:It looks like there is a big cloud of dust in the foreground left of center by the taxiway Bravo sign there in the grass. It looks similar to the one behind the incident aircraft. Did part of the exploding engine fly all the way over near that taxiway sign?

A visitor from United States posted Wed August 31, 2011:"Well, it looks like that #1 engine is running a little hot." Wonder what the pilots of that ANZ 747 were thinking?

A visitor from Australia posted Sun October 31, 2010:Wow, A explosion next to what looks like giant gas tanks.

A visitor from - posted Sat August 7, 2010:Imagine the view from the ANZ 747

A visitor from United States posted Mon August 2, 2010:Poor ole 767!

A visitor from Iran, Islamic Republic Of posted Sat May 1, 2010:Excellent timing!

A visitor from United Kingdom posted Wed September 2, 2009:Gave 5 for phtographer's luck. Thanks God it happend on the ground not in air.

A visitor from Canada posted Tue September 1, 2009:Nice shot. right place at right time

A visitor from France posted Sat August 15, 2009:A rare shot. Nice picture with good details such as fire and smoke.

A visitor from - posted Fri July 25, 2008:How did the tires hold out? i bet they were melted. I thought that AA and US 767's were the only airplane to offer afterburners.

A visitor from United States posted Thu July 24, 2008:The shot was actually not expected and yet caught in good detail. The thought of this happening at 35,000 feet and full of passengers is goose bump time.

A visitor from United States posted Thu July 24, 2008:The Air New Zealand cockpit must be overwhelmed by the sight. So close, they probably could smell the fume.

A visitor from United States posted Thu March 20, 2008:Poor airplane, it didn't deserve to die! :(

A visitor from Italy posted Thu March 6, 2008:Beautiful picture

A visitor from Canada posted Mon December 10, 2007:Great shot

A visitor from New Zealand posted Thu December 6, 2007:No i know that 767s can crap an engine in front of 747s

A visitor from United States posted Thu November 29, 2007:This is your captain speaking. Smoking will not be permitted on this flight.

A visitor from United States posted Thu November 29, 2007:As Jim Caerrey would say, Smokin'!!!

A visitor from United States posted Thu November 29, 2007:This is your captain speaking. Smoking on this flight will not be permitted.

A visitor from United States posted Sat September 1, 2007:W/o June 8th 2006, Determined that repairs to the aircraft were not worth the costs. Was scrapped and parts of the a/c sit in AA's maintence hanger in Tulsa, Ok or on another A A 767. The rest was cut up. Shame.

A visitor from - posted Thu July 26, 2007:Same thing happened to another AA767 in San José de Costa Rica Airport (SJO) two years ago.

A visitor from United Kingdom posted Sat March 3, 2007:Amazing, the photo was taken at the perfect time

A visitor from United States posted Sun December 31, 2006:Way to be alert!
Good documentary photo.

A visitor from United States posted Sun December 17, 2006:Damit!!!!!!!!!! perfectly good 767 w/ useful service still left. so sad

A visitor from New Zealand posted Wed October 25, 2006:Wow! absoulety faboulous!
Exploding engines... Superb!!
Also I like Air New Zealand

A visitor from United States posted Sun October 8, 2006:Excellent job on the timing!

A visitor from United States posted Sat August 26, 2006:The people on the Air NZ must have been thinkin oh DEAR!

A visitor from Germany posted Wed August 2, 2006:Great shot!

A visitor from United Arab Emirates posted Mon July 10, 2006:It's sad to see any aircraft suffer this type of faith. The aircraft involved was almost done with
the maintenance checks with engine runs to be performed before entering service again.
Unfortunately the aircraft has sustained serious damage on the entire wing, both engines and the
underside of the fuselage. The fire penetrated the aircraft so bad that the metal itself showed
signs of melting thereby affecting the aircraft's structure which is a pretty serious problem. A
problem that is not worth fixing the aircraft for. The aircraft will most likely be written off.

A visitor from United States posted Sun July 9, 2006:At least they found the problem on the ground and not the air.

A visitor from United States posted Fri July 7, 2006:Great pic, lucky airline that it wasen't flying

A visitor from Singapore posted Fri July 7, 2006:Hey, Gustavo, you sure that's not a 767 on afterburner? Glad that there were no casualties. Thanks for sharing a really "Explosive" capture here!

A visitor from New Zealand posted Fri July 7, 2006:"fly air new zealand, cos our motors dont catch fire"

Thats an awesome pic, nice to see something exciting with an NZ 744 in it as well, perhaps air nz engineering could give AA a few tips with engine and general maintnence =P

Fantastic timing, well done!

A visitor from Germany posted Mon July 3, 2006:WOW!!! What an explosion, i think the passengers in the NZ 744 sitting on the left side must have been really shocked!!

A visitor from United States posted Sat July 1, 2006:I rolled right past this plane that same evening on an inbound Cathay Pacific Flight from Hong Kong. I couldnt believe what I saw. All of the paint was burned off the back of the plane. I wondered to myself what happened but now I know. Great shot.

A visitor from Hong Kong posted Thu June 29, 2006:I was waiting to get on shuttle bus to remote bay at that moment, this pic just recalled my memory, great pic! RWY25R was closed for a while because of this BANG!!!

A visitor from Thailand posted Thu June 29, 2006:Great action photo.

A visitor from Australia posted Wed June 28, 2006:You yanks really know how to put on a barbie!

A visitor from Canada posted Tue June 27, 2006:In certification circles..engine must not burst,catch fire and so on ..there are six of these sins in engine certification.It appears that at least two sins are commited in the photo

A visitor from United States posted Mon June 26, 2006:Great picture

A visitor from Canada posted Mon June 26, 2006:What an great action pic. Often you read of incedents like this, but hardly ever do you see a great pic. Well done

A visitor from Denmark posted Fri June 23, 2006:Good short

A visitor from Ireland posted Wed June 21, 2006:Briilant

A visitor from Australia posted Mon June 19, 2006:Are you sure this wasn't at Baghdad (former:Saddam Hussein) International?

A visitor from United States posted Sat June 17, 2006:Many of the best photos are taken by people who happen to be at the right place and the right time. This is a perfect example. Shows exactly what was on fire and close enough to see.

A visitor from United States posted Fri June 16, 2006:Only mechanics on board. MX was doing a engine test run. High pressure disk failed. Spinning at high speed(thousands, or tens of thousands of RPM) and weighing over 20 kg(44 lbs), it exited the engine and caused severe damage to the engine.

A visitor from United Kingdom posted Fri June 16, 2006:Americans...lol, very nice photo though!

A visitor from Mexico posted Fri June 16, 2006:Right at the moment! Really impressive. T.B.

A visitor from United States posted Fri June 16, 2006:Wow so amazing!!

A visitor from United States posted Fri June 16, 2006:Amazing! I have not found any pictures of the 767 engine explosion itself until now!

A visitor from United States posted Thu June 15, 2006:That is a sweet shot! Better on the ground than in the air!

A visitor from United Kingdom posted Thu June 15, 2006:I hope there wasnt anyone on board! OUCH!!!!

A visitor from United States posted Thu June 15, 2006:Great timing capturing this! The 767 reportedly came in with problems on Eng #1. MX was performing a test run on this engine when a turbine wheel failed. Parts of the wheel exited through the side of the hot section, sliced through the fuselage and some pieces even embedded themselves in Eng #2. The resulting fire caused substantial damage to the wing and fuselage.

230 PM, Friday, June 2, 2006 at LAX. American Airlines Boeing 767 doing a high power engine run had a #1 engine High Pressure Turbine (HPT) failure. HPT let go and punctured left wing, #2 engine, peppered fuselage and set
fire to the aircraft. The turbine disk exits the engine and slices through the aircraft belly and lodges in the outboard side of the #2 engine.

And that really sucks ! No casualties ...

A visitor from United States posted Thu June 15, 2006:Very nice photo which may have captured the results of a turbine nozzle failure. The 767 uses CF6-80 series engines which have had rash of nozzle lock failures. An AD was generated to address this issue along with technical information from GE. USAir had a similar incident at PHL a couple of years ago. The nozzle locks keep the turbine nozzles in place. When these locks fail, due to cracks and deformation, it allows the nozzle to spin like a turbine wheel, which it is not designed to do. Unrestrained, the tremendous energy generated by the combustor, will cause the nozzles to rapidly spin up. It only takes a small amount of rotation before the turbine section disintegrates with explosive force. I don't believe there was a redesign of the locking system. The fix was to make a one time inspection of the nozzle locking system and increase inspection interval. The aim is to detect any turbine nozzle rotation, check for cracks and defects in individual nozzle locks, and replacement of cracked or deformed nozzle locks. It's important to mention that he nozzle locking system does not fail all at once. What happens is that several high stress nozzles will crack and deform degrading the overall effectiveness of the nozzle locking system. Initially this might allowing the turbine nozzle to shift slightly, which may cause an engine performance anomaly, like high EGT, which maintenance will try to trouble shoot by doing an engine run. If left undetected the remaining nozzle locks, now under even greater stress, taking up the load of adjacent cracked or deformed locks, will crack and deform and then the entire locking system will fail catastrophically. Looks like AA maintenance was investigating an engine performance problem but wasn't able catch the nozzle lock problem before an engine failure. Good thing it happened during a static ground run!

A visitor from United States posted Thu June 15, 2006:The pilots on that Air NZ 747 must be saying, "!@$#%$^&! We're outta here."

A visitor from Canada posted Thu June 15, 2006:Did they ground the NZ flight? Or did they just carry on with TO?

A visitor from France posted Thu June 15, 2006:Amazing timing !!! I had 2 engine explosion in my career so far....wish somebody would have been there with a camera....though both happened in flight just after take off....could have been great shots!

A visitor from Netherlands posted Thu June 15, 2006:At the moment their were no passengers on board of the plane, it was just an engine test wich went wrong. Luckely their were no casaulties

A visitor from Germany posted Thu June 15, 2006:Very dangerous!!! it burns near the big fuel containers.

A visitor from Philippines posted Thu June 15, 2006:Les: Sorry for the engine trouble. Fixed it QUICK!!

A visitor from United Kingdom posted Thu June 15, 2006:A rare photo opportunity - well documented on 'film'. I wonder if the NZ 744 was inspected for any damage from the explosion? It is the same aircraft (N330AA) that was on here last week, there weren't two explosions. I was actually on holiday in LA and saw the airframe last week on June 3rd. Unfortunately, I had left my camera at home in England. DoH!!

A visitor from United States posted Thu June 15, 2006:From what I have heard no one was on board as it was at the AA hanger. Just from what I have heard.

A visitor from United States posted Thu June 15, 2006:I thought the photo of the engine fire on the American Airlines plane was especially good because it is crisp and clear and shows how terrifyingly close the jet is to what appears to be huge fuel tanks.

A visitor from United States posted Thu June 15, 2006:Too cool!

A visitor from Korea, Republic Of posted Thu June 15, 2006:Hmmm.. Quite a tragedy that AA had such accident..

A visitor from United States posted Thu June 15, 2006:OOPS!

A visitor from Malaysia posted Thu June 15, 2006:Well shot man. Isn't this the second aircraft AA had their engines burn out from tests? Or was this with people inside this time?

A visitor from Kuwait posted Thu June 15, 2006:Sad image

A visitor from United States posted Thu June 15, 2006:Great timing!

A visitor from French Polynesia posted Thu June 15, 2006:Wouchhh ! Just near the fuel tank ! Anybody on board ?

A visitor from United States posted Thu June 15, 2006:I was sitting in my upstairs office at home when I heard the boom. I live 5 miles away from LAX and knew it was some sort of explosion but none of the news channels had anything on it nor did the radio.

A visitor from United States posted Thu June 15, 2006:Wow.....I wonder what caused it.

A visitor from Canada posted Thu June 15, 2006:Awful! Luck that it didn't happen on 30'000 feet altitude. :)

A visitor from United States posted Thu June 15, 2006:Wow Excellent view here. looks like the aircraft is done for

A visitor from Lebanon posted Thu June 15, 2006:Holy crap!
That thing is totally on fire!

A visitor from France posted Thu June 15, 2006:Very good

A visitor from Spain posted Thu June 15, 2006:Gustavo, as usual at the right place at the right time. Thanks for sharing! M.

A visitor from Greece posted Thu June 15, 2006:Nice shot ! What happened to the other one that was on a.net ? I bet the NZ passengers must have had quite a thrill with the view !

A visitor from Australia posted Thu June 15, 2006:I don't think I would be feeling too safe if I was onboard the NZ 747-400. Right place, right time, and it goes without saying, an awsome shot.

Matthew

A visitor from United States posted Thu June 15, 2006:Nice photo...

A visitor from United States posted Thu June 15, 2006:Wow. That looks bad. Hope everybody was ok.

A visitor from United States posted Wed June 14, 2006:Ooops!

A visitor from United States posted Wed June 14, 2006:Congrats! Gustavo. Timing and location always matters,too! Suresh

A visitor from United States posted Wed June 14, 2006:Engine blew up during a test. That must have been the highlight of the day.

A visitor from United States posted Wed June 14, 2006:I bet the passengers on ZK-SUJ felt very uneasy that flight.

Pilot:
"Ladies and gentlemen, please look on your right side of the airplane as the plane to your left is on fire."

Good timing on the shot by the way.

A visitor from United States posted Wed June 14, 2006:The only person(s) luckier were the ones who got away from it before she cooked off any further. Shame to see such a beauty go that way.

A visitor from Finland posted Wed June 14, 2006:Right place and right timing! Hope this picture doesn't get taken off like some of the other about this incident.

A visitor from United States posted Wed June 14, 2006:Hopefully that once in a lifetime shot.

A visitor from Denmark posted Wed June 14, 2006:Wow! Right place at the right time! Rare fotos like this makes airliners.net even more exciting!

A visitor from Australia posted Wed June 14, 2006:Did someone leave a donut in the engines again?

A visitor from United States posted Wed June 14, 2006:Excellent shot Gustav. Right place at the right time, framed it up nicely. How lucky do you have to be to get that!

A visitor from Netherlands posted Wed June 14, 2006:Thats gives a nice idea of the size of fire amazing lucky shot!
I dont know what 767-200 have with fires like mine usairways photo ;-) Good Work!
Rgrds, Ruben Hofs

A visitor from United States posted Wed June 14, 2006:AWESOME TIMING!!!! WOW.... JUST WOW!!!

A visitor from Netherlands posted Wed June 14, 2006:Wow.. cool!

A visitor from United States posted Wed June 14, 2006:What happened?

A visitor from United States posted Wed June 14, 2006:So sad to see that.

A visitor from United States posted Wed June 14, 2006:Being there when it all went bad.

A visitor from United States posted Wed June 14, 2006:OMG great show, i've been looking for the follow up of this story. Love the contrast with the NZ heavy

A visitor from United States posted Wed June 14, 2006:Holy Smokes ! that looks serious - nice capture ... lucky you ...

A visitor from United States posted Wed June 14, 2006:DAMN!!!....ABSOLUTELY AMAZING!!! Thats HOT!!!

A visitor from United States posted Wed June 14, 2006:What the hell happened?

A visitor from United States posted Wed June 14, 2006:Dang AA Mechanics!

A visitor from Australia posted Wed June 14, 2006:They were so lucky that it didn't happen in the air.

A visitor from South Africa posted Wed June 14, 2006:STUNNING!!! GREAT SHOT!

KABOOM -5,000+ Views!!!- by member ZeleniPasAirplane crashes/incidents. Includes accidents from tiny mishaps like "airplane fender-benders" to the big ones. RIP to all innocents that die of plane crashes